PLOScast

In this PLOScast, Elizabeth Seiver speaks with Matt Shipman, science writer and author of The Handbook for Science Public Information Officers, about his experience as a PIO for North Carolina State University and his advice for anyone interested in promoting scientific research. The interview covers the process of creating a press release, the impact of journal preprints on science journalism, social media tips for scientists and changing media landscape. For show notes click here: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2016/03/21/how-to-communicate-science-an-interview-with-matt-shipman/

Receiving credit for your work as a researcher is important to your career. In this PLOScast, Elizabeth Seiver speaks with Alice Meadows, the Director of Communications at ORCID, about how we can better connect researchers to their research using unique digital identifiers. Read more here: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2016/03/03/all-about-orcid-an-interview-with-alice-meadows/

Guest host Mark Johnson talks with Alex Wade, the Director of Scholarly Communication at Microsoft Research, about new tools for academics from Microsoft.

Full podcast notes here: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2016/02/16/microsoft-tools-for-academics-an-interview-with-alex-wade/

Learn all about the Open Access Spectrum Tool in this PLOScast. Elizabeth Seiver speaks with Greg Tananbaum, the owner of ScholarNext, on the Open Access policies, quantifying Open Access and other emerging trends related to scholarly communication.

Full podcast notes here: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2016/02/01/how-open-is-it-an-interview-with-greg-tananbaum/

Expanding the reach of Open Access. In this PLOScast, Elizabeth speaks with John Willinsky, the Executive Director of the Public Knowledge Project about how the public engages with OA science and how OA publishing can expand into new communities.

Full podcast notes here: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2016/01/19/expanding-the-reach-of-open-access-publishing-an-interview-with-john-willinsky/

Strategies and tools beyond Excel. Elizabeth Seiver speaks with Tracy Teal, the Executive Director of Data Carpentry, a nonprofit organization that teaches researchers the fundamental skills for working more effectively with data. Together they talk about data management skills that can change how researchers do science and offer tips on how to make handling data easier for all.

Full podcast notes here: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2015/12/14/episode-3-managing-scientific-data-feat-tracy-teal/

Universities are churning out newly minted PhDs much faster than they create faculty positions for them. So what sorts of jobs are available beyond the ivory tower? How can academic culture change to better support multiple career paths? Dr. Liz Silva, the Director of the MIND Program at UCSF, joins us to discuss the postdoc crisis facing academia today, and offers advice for how to get started on the post-academic job search.

Full podcast notes here: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2015/11/16/the-postdoc-crisis-an-interview-with-liz-silva/

Part 2 of the discussion with Cameron Neylon. Full episode notes here: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2015/10/19/introducing-ploscast-a-podcast-on-on-science-academia-and-the-future-of-scholarship/

In this segment, Elizabeth and Cameron discuss open peer review and transparency in different scientific communities. Full episode notes: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2015/10/19/introducing-ploscast-a-podcast-on-on-science-academia-and-the-future-of-scholarship/

In this episode of the PLOS Biology podcast, Senior Editor Liza Gross interviews Georgina Mace, professor of conservation science and director of the Natural Environment Research Council Centre for Population Biology.

This week, world leaders re-examine their commitment to “green” economic growth at Rio+20, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, in Rio de Janeiro. Although governments agreed to factor environmental and social impacts into development plans 20 years ago at the last Earth Summit, we've since ushered in the sixth great extinction, pushed the climate toward a tipping point, decimated wetlands, and even set a few rivers on fire.

In the podcast, Professor Mace discusses the challenges ahead through the lens of three articles published this week in PLoS Biology that revisit an old debate on the limits to growth: Must we drastically reduce our exploitation of Earth's resources or can technological innovation allow continued development?

In “The Macroecology of Sustainability” John Burger and colleagues argue that sustainability science fails to account for the ecological and physical constraints that govern life (http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001345). In response, “The Shifting Boundaries of Sustainability Science: Are We Doomed Yet?” John Matthews and Frederick Boltz of Conservation International argue that human ingenuity will forestall disaster long enough to overcome resource limits and allow continued economic growth (http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001344). In an accompanying editorial, Professor Mace argues that nothing in sustainability science makes sense except in light of ecology--and evolution, equitable development, natural resource management, and individual rights and responsibilities (http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001343). "It's a complicated set of problems," she acknowledges.

Gross and Professor Mace will discuss the sustainability crisis, the philosophical tension between ecological pessimism and technological optimism, the prospects for finding a path to true sustainability, and much more.